


Tessellate

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Pining, idk i'm back on my bs, kind of angsty??? it's not that angsty i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28185771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When Armin had first gotten his hair cut short, he didn’t realize it was something that would spark a match in Eren’s seemingly unmovable spirit.
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager
Comments: 28
Kudos: 296





	Tessellate

When Armin had first gotten his hair cut short, he didn’t realize it was something that would spark a match in Eren’s seemingly unmovable spirit.

Eren had been withdrawing into himself for the weeks leading up to the Marley trip, eyes empty and lips downturned if one happened to catch him at the wrong time—which was becoming an increasingly common occurrence. 

All too often Armin found himself speaking a little louder, a little happier, at the table during mealtimes, if only to make up for the unnerving silence that resonated from his right side. The others at the table, not without pity in their voices, would scramble to fill the space; Sasha never had any shortage of praises to sing for the meals, especially those cooked by the young Marleyan chef who suspiciously never worked at times she wasn’t also present, and Connie loved bantering along with her. 

Jean, Armin suspected, could also feel the curling tension in the staleness of the air, in the way Eren tended to eat his meals with a certain perfunctory casualness, in the way Mikasa wouldn’t finish her meal until Eren had also taken his last bite.

Meal times, at first, were reminders to Armin that they had triumphed, at least a little, in their path to reaching an understanding with the world. They ate food from places far beyond their island, and the Marleyan chefs, at first reluctant to serve them, now chatted amicably with them, exchanging stories for stories, laughs for laughs.

Now they only served to tell Armin that something was very, very wrong, a something that he had no equipment to pick apart, no cheat code by which to decipher.

Eren had always been an enigma that Armin longed to solve, longed to understand. Even though he prided himself in being the one to best know Eren’s mannerisms, the softness of Eren’s hand against his own and the dip of Eren’s shoulder in which his chin fit best, Eren had outgrown every box Armin had placed him in. 

Recently, Armin only got to hold Eren’s hand when he reached out to help Armin step out of the Colossal titan’s body; though Armin had long figured out how to control the unwieldy monster he had been fated to control, Eren never failed to offer a steadying hand—even if the look in his eyes was far away. 

And Armin’s chin didn’t slot neatly atop Eren’s shoulder anymore. If anything, with Eren’s added height, his chin should’ve fit on the crown of Armin's head, if only he bothered to get within a five feet radius of his childhood best friend for matters other than politics.

Armin didn’t know what to do or how to reach out; Eren felt more like a deadly chasm that needed to be crossed than a person whom he could hold onto, clutch closer to himself, if only to hear the beating of Eren's heart and remind himself that they were alive, that they had made it through all those years together and that they would continue to move forward together. 

Armin felt that if he reached out at the wrong time and with the wrong hand, all he would grasp would be frigid air.

Things needed to change, and they needed to change fast.

\--

Incidentally, it was in the hallways of the barracks on the way to lunch where Eren found him.

“What happened to your hair?”

Self-consciousness tingling his skin, Armin ran a hand through his bangs, the tips blunter than they had been earlier that morning. “What do you mean?”

Eren, brows furrowed and mouth slack, reached forward and ran his fingers across the back of Armin’s head, now empty of the curtain of blond that normally shielded it. 

Earlier that week, Mikasa had gotten her hair tangled up in a nasty ODM accident that had wrenched out handfuls. Though Mikasa had never been particularly vain, she had sulked quite heartily about having to crop her hair short (and the pale bald spot shining tauntingly at the back of her head. Though it was easily covered, she adamantly refused to allow anyone aside from Armin to see it, and only when he was helping to even out her impromptu haircut). 

That was when Armin had decided that he, too, needed a haircut—before any harsh metal wiring could do it for him. 

Armin subconsciously leaned into Eren’s touch, a touch so familiar yet he had long forgotten the feel of it; in their childhood, Eren had liked to clumsily run his fingers through Armin’s hair, getting mud and grass and sweat tangled up in the strands. 

Though there was no dirt for Armin to carefully comb out, the rough surety was still there, the way Eren reached out as if he had done it a thousand times before, as if the flesh of his palm were shaped perfectly to cradle the back of Armin’s head.

“It’s… it’s not there anymore,” Eren said, and the simplicity of the statement coaxed a giggle from Armin’s throat.

“That’s what happens when you cut your hair off,” Armin replied, smiling and shrugging, the warmth at the back of his neck a welcome sensation. “I’d had that haircut since…forever, really. I thought it was time for a change.”

Eren frowned, the corners of his mouth fitting into the spaces that they had grown far too accustomed to. “But I liked your hair.”

Heat dusted the tops of Armin’s cheeks. “Thanks.”

“Why’d you cut it?”

Irritation laced into the confused tilt of his brows. “I just said that I wanted a change.”

Eren, at least, had the decency to look a bit chastised. “But…” 

Armin recognized the way Eren looked around the hallway, up at the ceiling, and back at him, knew it was a sign that Eren was thinking deeply about what was best to say in response. It wasn’t an expression Eren wore too often, typically inclined to speak his mind, but he had grown into it during his years in the corps.

“I liked feeling it,” Eren said, as eloquently as he could manage, clearly struggling to express exactly what he felt. “Even though I hadn’t… even though I hadn’t really…” Eren sighed, running a hand through his hair, which was also getting quite long. “I liked it a lot, and it was a reminder of home, too.” 

Armin’s heart skipped a beat.

“It was a reminder that not everything has to change,” Eren said finally, as if releasing a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding, a breath that thudded thunderously in his lungs upon its departure. “That even though we lost our home and our childhood, we stayed the same. We stayed together.”

Fondness, a sneaky thing, crept into the cracks and crevices of Armin’s heart, glowing proudly like a sun ensconced in the darkness of a galaxy. His worry for Eren had eclipsed all other feelings he had toward the other boy; it was all too easy to forget that the source of his worry was love, an indescribable and boundless love that fluttered in his ribcage whenever Eren was in range.

Armin laid a hand softly on Eren’s wrist, which was still right by his ear. Armin found that he could see the green of Eren’s eyes better when there wasn’t the stray bit of blond hair to obscure any of his vision.

“Ah, forget it,” Eren said, cheeks aflame and tone embarrassed. “You can do whatever you want with your hair. You look good.”

Armin smiled, hoping that the curl of his fingers against the steady beat of Eren’s pulse could convey what he could not in words. “Thank you. Maybe you should grow yours long, to balance everything out.”

That earned the first laugh from Eren that Armin had heard in weeks, and he wished for nothing more than to hear that booming laugh echoing through the hallway everyday for the years to come.

\--

Many months later, when Armin extends a hand out through the open door of a flying aircraft and looks down into the eyes of the man he thought he knew, he thinks to himself that some things really are better off left the same.


End file.
